Who is She?

Who is this looking back at me?
She doesn’t look like anyone I recognize.

Is she…
The baby girl taking her first shocking breath unaware and un-conscious of her thoughts…running on animal instinct alone…
The waking up baby confused by her reflection…
The toddler realizing she can make things happen…
The four year old making sense of letters on paper…
The seven year old fascinated that a gap that looks so small can feel so big…
The nine year old lying on her bed reading and reading and reading….Judy Bloom, Enid Blyton, Roald Dahl, Laura Ingalls Wilder, LM Montgomery, Carolyn Keene and anything else she can get her hands on…
The ten year old who wants to believe in the magic of the Easter Bunny and Santa Claus and The Tooth Fairy…
The twelve year old suddenly realizing what it means to be a girl and not sure whether to be excited, scared, or pissed off…
The fourteen year old who feels like a fraud in the school band because she has no sense of rhythm or tune…but fakes it because she counts to four so well…
The fifteen year old horrified by the recurring Picture Day pimple…Come on!!!!
The sixteen year old who is proud of, but begins to hide, the fact that she is a whiz at maths and sciences…
The eighteen year old who discovers romantic love…and isn’t sure what to do with it…
The nineteen year old playing house in her first apartment with her boyfriend…
The twenty-one year old city girl going to classes and studying and no longer hiding the fact that she’s a whiz at sciences…
The twenty-five year old walking down the aisle to marry her first boyfriend…
The twenty-seven year old receiving a Law Degree with her name on it…
The twenty-eight year old holding her familiar, but brandnew, first born…
The thirty-two year old joining the “Dad has died” club…
The thirty-three year old sitting at the dinner table in November knowing that her family is now complete…
The thirty-five year old juggler of schedules and school drop offs and swimming lessons…
The thirty-seven year old racing from school drop off, to job, to school pick up, to after school activities…and running out of ideas for healthy meals that please every palate and can be made and consumed to oblige the chaotic schedule…
The forty year old cookie baker, boo boo kisser, homework helper, and giggle maker…
The forty-three year old who accepts that maybe she will always struggle with those 10 or 20 or 30 extra pounds and that maybe, just maybe, it doesn’t actually define her…
The forty-five year old moving her first child into university residence…
The forty-seven year old savouring the final years with kids at home…
The fifty-one year old facing her first First Day of School with three empty beds at home and no one to make lunches for…
The fifty-two year old rediscovering what makes her heart race and reassessing her next steps…
The fifty-two-and-a-half year old who smiles back, excited, eager, feeling like a twenty-five year old ready to head into a whole new life…but with the joy of five decades of precious memories and experiences fuelling her…

Oh yes, I see now, it is me. It is all me.
She is all of these…the one who looks back at me from the mirror.
Full of life lived and full of life to live.